Campton Campground
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 5855 on recreation.gov
- Season
- May 1Opens May 1. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Campton Campground is a large and accommodating facility near the southern edge of White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. With many kid-friendly activities nearby such as hiking and nature programs, the campground is especially popular with families. It is convenient to U.S. Highway 93, which travels through the middle of the state, and is just two hours from Boston. The White Mountains boast pristine forests, clear mountain streams and rivers and the tallest peaks in the Northeast. The forest encompasses nearly 800,000 acres in New Hampshire and western Maine, and is one of the most popular in the country. Keep reading
Recreation
The White Mountains are a favorite among hikers. Many miles of hiking and mountain biking trails are within a short drive of the campground. Within the facility, nature programs are available on Saturday nights in July and August. Anglers can cast a line for brook trout, pickerel, brown bullhead and yellow perch in the pond and river. No power boats are permitted on the pond.
Facilities
This is a large facility with many types of campsites that accommodate a variety of camping preferences. Despite its size, campsites are spaced well-apart. Restrooms, drinking water and hot showers (coin-operated) are provided. Sites 33-58 are near the flush toilets.
Natural Features
The campground lies amidst a beautiful thick forest of white pine and northern hardwoods that provide plenty of shade. The 30-acre Campton Pond and Mad River are close by. The White Mountains are home to many species of northern wildlife, including moose, white-tailed deer and black bear. Almost 200 species of birds, including the rare Bicknell's Thrush, live in the forest.
Nearby Attractions
Families who need a break from the woods can explore miniature golf, a water sports park, train rides and gondolas in nearby towns. The White Mountains region hosts four alpine and five nordic ski areas, which provide year-round recreation opportunities such as skiing, hiking, mountain biking, outdoor concerts, interpretive trails, special events and regional and national skiing and snowboarding races. The area also contains 1,200 miles of hiking trails, including 160 miles of the famous Appalachian Trail. Learn more about recreation in the national forest. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (802) 289-0970.
What the agency tells you
Two pets per site
No switching sites upon arrival
Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers or locked inside a hard-sided vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Please Note: Site fee includes one RV with tow vehicle, tent sites include two vehicles. If space allows a third vehicle would be an additional fee paid at time of check in if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On. Vehicles must fit on the parking spur at your site.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Visitors should be prepared for rugged trails and changing weather: Hike SafeHike Safe
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Click here to learn more about White Mountain National Forest website
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 58 · 15 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- 30
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…are provided. Sites 33-58 are near the flush toilets. Natural Features The campground lies amidst a…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Restrooms, drinking water and hot showers (coin-operated) are provided.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…are spaced well-apart. Restrooms, drinking water and hot showers (coin-operated) are provided. Sites…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Ranger programs
- Night sky · 22nd darkest of 28 in NH
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 3 days ago, 24 km away
- Patchy color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 55 of the 58 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
91 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 55 mapped sitesAll 91 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 58 of the 91 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 58 of the 91 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| HARD | 033 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 73 ft | 949 ftMad River | 383 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 034 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 73 ft | 922 ftMad River | 324 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 035 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 78 ft | 960 ftMad River | 246 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 036 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | yes | 78 ft | 916 ftMad River | 211 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 037 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 73 ft | 984 ftMad River | 92 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 038 | tent only nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 73 ft | 912 ftMad River | 159 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 039 | tent only nonelectric | 30 ft | 66 ft | 1,014 ftMad River | 99 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 040 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 66 ft | 961 ftMad River | 160 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 041 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 82 ft | 995 ftMad River | 215 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 042 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 67 ft | 1,054 ftMad River | 266 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 043 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 62 ft | 1,097 ftMad River | 321 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 044 | tent only nonelectric | 30 ft | 78 ft | 1,138 ftMad River | 257 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 045 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 62 ft | 1,158 ftMad River | 337 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 046 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 65 ft | 1,209 ftMad River | 316 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 047 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 76 ft | 1,182 ftMad River | 205 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 048 | tent only nonelectric | 65 ft | 1,244 ftMad River | 291 ft | $30 | ||
| HARD | 049 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 49 ft | 1,202 ftMad River | 170 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 050 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 76 ft | 1,243 ft | 243 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 051 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 59 ft | 1,197 ftMad River | 141 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 052 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 49 ft | 1,226 ft | 204 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 053 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 59 ft | 1,204 ft | 198 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 054 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 76 ft | 1,182 ftMad River | 166 ft | $30 |
| HARD | 055 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 76 ft | 1,206 ft | 240 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 056 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 93 ft | 1,208 ftMad River | 261 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 057 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 74 ft | 1,099 ftMad River | 257 ft | $30 | |
| HARD | 058 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 74 ft | 1,099 ftMad River | 329 ft | $30 | |
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 016 | type not stated | 568 ft | 225 ft | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 019 | type not stated | 562 ft | 249 ft | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 022 | type not stated | 724 ft | 122 ft | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | XXX | unnamed record | 30 ft | yes | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX | unnamed record | 30 ft | yes | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX1 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX10 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX11 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX12 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX13 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX14 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX15 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX16 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX17 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX18 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX19 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX2 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX20 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX21 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX22 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX23 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX24 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX25 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX26 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX27 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX28 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX29 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX3 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX30 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX31 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX4 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX5 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX6 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX7 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX8 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX9 | unnamed record | $30 | |||||
| SOFT | 001 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 61 ft | 985 ftMad River | 337 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 002 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 45 ft | 1,044 ftMad River | 270 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 003 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 61 ft | 989 ftMad River | 302 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 004 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | yes | 58 ft | 997 ftMad River | 272 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 005 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 59 ft | 1,015 ft | 239 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 006 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 58 ft | 974 ft | 215 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 007 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | yes | 69 ft | 928 ft | 241 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 008 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | yes | 80 ft | 856 ft | 248 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 009 | tent only nonelectric | 68 ft | 880 ft | 172 ft | $30 | ||
| SOFT | 010 | tent only nonelectric | 68 ft | 816 ft | 165 ft | $30 | ||
| SOFT | 011 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 80 ft | 784 ft | 266 ft | $30 | |
| SOFT | 012 | tent only nonelectric | 68 ft | 756 ft | 189 ft | $30 | ||
| SOFT | 013 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 80 ft | 678 ft | 226 ft | $30 | |
| SOFT | 014 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 86 ft | 569 ft | 283 ft | $30 | |
| SOFT | 015 | tent only nonelectric | 65 ft | 491 ft | 322 ft | $30 | ||
| SOFT | 017 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 65 ft | 464 ft | 327 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 018 | tent only nonelectric | 109 ft | 506 ft | 294 ft | $30 | ||
| SOFT | 020 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 55 ft | 609 ft | 216 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 021 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 55 ft | 651 ft | 209 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 023 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 58 ft | 765 ft | 136 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 024 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 60 ft | 720 ft | 187 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 025 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 61 ft | 773 ft | 199 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 026 | tent only nonelectric | 58 ft | 820 ft | 155 ft | $30 | ||
| SOFT | 027 | tent only nonelectric | 61 ft | 829 ft | 219 ft | $30 | ||
| SOFT | 028 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 72 ft | 892 ft | 180 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 029 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 66 ft | 893 ft | 248 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 030 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 87 ft | 1,075 ft | 307 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 031 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 80 ft | 1,002 ft | 223 ft | $30 |
| SOFT | 032 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 45 ft | 1,066 ftMad River | 280 ft | $30 |
The agency files 33 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It types every one of them MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 91 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Waterville CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 7.5 mi
Osceola Vista CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 8.7 mi
Russell Pond CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 9.4 mi
Big RockWhite Mountain National Forest · 13 mi
Hancock Campground (NH)White Mountain National Forest · 13 miPassaconaway CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 15 miFrom Highway 93 in central New Hampshire, take exit 28 and follow Highway 49 (Mad River Road) east for 2 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Plymouth, NH
Typical weather
Typical May night 39°F, day 67°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Campton Campground is in New Hampshire’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Maggie Goodlander (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →